Drawing straws

Machine-translated from the French article

Drawing straws, or more formerly drawing sticks, is a method of random selection used within a social group when several people volunteer to perform an action or when, on the contrary, no one wishes to perform it. One of the group members selects as many straws (or more generally, elongated objects: matches, etc.) as there are participants, making sure that at least one of them is shorter than the others. Out of sight of his partners, he places these straws in his fist, leaving visible only one end of each, and aligning these visible ends horizontally: it is thus impossible to determine the length of each straw.